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  ‘Okay, since you just said your own vows, we can dispense with the standard one.’ Sam scanned the sheets of paper he held and shuffled a few before continuing. ‘Um ... let’s see. Yeah, here we are. With the power invested in me by the state, I now pronounce you husband and wife.’ He beamed at us. ‘You may kiss the bride.’

  Alec swept me up and kissed me to the applause of those attending. I wished for the kiss to never end. He was mine, just as I was his, in the most sacred of bonds. And ours was for eternity. Such a feeling of lightness entered my soul that I could have soared into the heavens. Our serpent rings came to life in a blaze of ruby light that filled the room and set aglow the smiling faces of those around us. Joyful tears slid down my face.

  ‘Hello wife.’ Alec’s thumbs traced my cheeks and gently wiped away my tears.

  ‘Hello husband.’ We stood there, almost shyly, grinning at each other like a couple of school kids out on a first date. Considering my belly would soon be swelling, there wasn’t much left to be shy about.

  ‘Congratulations.’ Sam shook Alec’s hand and pecked me on the cheek. ‘You know that’s the first one of these I’ve done.’

  Alec laughed. ‘Well I’m glad we gave you the opportunity.’

  Besides Jake, Kari and our housekeeper, Sabine, most of the household staff had quietly gathered. Grinning, they’d congregated near the entrance. Some threw rice, others confetti.

  I smiled and waved back. ‘So much for keeping this a secret from the Brethren.’ By tonight, the whole Brethren world would in all probability know Alec and I were, indeed, the Promised Ones. Why else would an Ingenii marry her Guardian unless, unlike the rest of his kind, he could procreate? And the only one who could do that was the One spoken of in the prophecy. Many already had their suspicions and had voiced them. They didn’t want the curse to end, for as long as there was an Ingenii, there remained the chance to daywalk.

  The ending of the curse meant the loss of that hope.

  Beings without hope either succumbed to despair or they lashed out against it.

  I feared the latter.

  Alec acknowledged the staff and dipped his head in greeting. ‘I knew it was only a matter of time. Marrying you is worth the risk.’ I was lost for words—it wasn’t the first time he did it to me. ‘Don’t think of it now. This is our day, Mrs Munro.’

  ‘Mrs Munro.’ It sounded so alien and yet so right. ‘I’ll have to say it a few times to get used to it.’

  ‘You’ve got the rest of our lives.’

  A swarm of butterflies danced in my stomach as I pictured the years—maybe centuries—before us. I still had no idea how the ending of the Curse would impact me. What if I became fully human, with a human lifespan? I touched the ruby-pendant vial Luc had given me that contained three drops of blood from his family’s bloodline. It was immortality in a bottle. I only had to drink it, and my lifespan would equal Alec’s.

  It all hinged on the little word ‘if’.

  Annnnd .... Now was not the time to think about it. I let it go when the pop of a cork broke into my thoughts.

  ‘Here you go.’ Jake handed me a fluted glass filled with bubbly champagne. He handed one to Alec. Lifting his glass, Jake toasted us. ‘I wish you both all the happiness in the world. Salut!’

  We chinked, and Alec and I linked arms and drank from each other’s glasses.

  From somewhere, music began to play: a slow waltz. Alec took me into his arms, and we twirled to its hypnotic strains. This was, indeed, our time, and enveloped in my husband’s arms, my heart soared. I let the future and whatever it held disappear into the recesses of my mind.

  Chapter 22 - Pazuzim

  MATT

  I hitched up the collar of my coat as I exited the car hire depot. Damn wind had a chilly bite. Wasn’t April supposed to be warm in this part of the world?

  I blew on my hands and rubbed them together to keep warm, and scanned the parking lot. Where was this hire car? If—as I hoped—all had gone to plan, my drive to Laura’s family villa in D’Antonville would be a waste of time. She wouldn’t be there. No need to rush. But for the sake of protocol, I had to prove I was there; record everything in a logbook. I had to have evidence that Munro and his bloodsucking lot changed their location in response to Jenny’s call.

  Still, I preferred not be surprised.

  I’d never told Laura, but two months into our relationship, I’d had a tracer planted into her phone. Over the years, I’d made a lot of enemies: bastards I’d put away, some serving life sentences with friends on the outside, friends who could hurt Laura to get to me.

  She needed protection, and as I saw it, this had been the best way.

  I should’ve removed it after we’d split.

  Images of us together rampaged through my mind. Damn it! No time for sentiment, and sucked in some of that chilly air to numb my brain—and my dick.

  The tracer app on my phone showed she was in Scotland. My ruse had worked. Still it was a kick in the guts. I hated that she was running from me. Because you’re still in love with her, idiot! I snapped the phone wallet shut, my insides burning like I’d swallowed boiling rocks. She’d made her choice. Let her now see the consequences of it. Keep running, babe. I’ll still find you and that bloodsucking lover of yours. An odd sense of excitement shot through me, like some kind of primeval urge that revelled in the thrill of the hunt ... and kill. My fingers curled into fists in expectation.

  But none of that would happen if I couldn’t find that damn car.

  I scanned the parking lot again and pressed the Unlock button on the key looking for the familiar “beep” and flash of blinkers.

  Nope. Nothing.

  ‘Hey!’ Guy in a beige mac bumped my shoulder as he rushed past. He headed straight for the third row of cars, and into a black Renault, unlocked it and threw himself in. Lucky bastard’s found his car. Must’ve switched the heating on full blast from the way his car windows were demystifying.

  Why the hell hadn’t I brought gloves? I dropped my suitcase and blew on my hands again, and that’s when I spotted it, right next to beige mac guy’s car: steel-grey sedan with the right rego plate. Why hadn’t I seen it before? But, just to be sure, I pressed the remote again. The sedan’s blinkers flashed. I hefted my bag, and my frozen legs couldn’t carry me fast enough. And, I nearly got in the wrong side. Damn, I’d forgotten that here they drove on the right-hand side.

  Left door, mate, left door.

  I scouted the dashboard. First thing, switch on the engine for the heating. On. It took a few seconds, but eventually the hot air blasted the numbness from my face. Next, GPS ... and there it was. I switched the language to English and punched in my destination. There was someone I had to visit, a man by the name of Robert Junot. I’d copied his details from the Nighthunter kids’ notebook. His address was about a ten-minute drive from here, in the old part of town. I’d checked on Google maps before leaving Sydney; had even downloaded a photo of the place—Rue Racine, above a shop.

  Ten minutes later, I sat parked just outside a building with set of weathered brown timber doors accessed via a courtyard.

  I’d considered the possibility that whoever this Robert Junot was, might not want to share information with a stranger. Well, that was too bloody bad.

  I got out of the car and pressed the doorbell.

  ‘Qu’est-ce que te veux?’ An old guy’s face appeared in the top window.

  ‘You speak English?’

  ‘Allez-vous en.’ He waved me off and slammed the window shut.

  Reckon that must’ve been the French for ‘get lost.’ Great start. Let’s try again. ‘Robert Junot?’ I pulled out my badge and held it up for him to see. ‘I’m a policeman, from Australia, and I need to speak to you.’

  No answer.

  I pulled out my French phrasebook, some of the pages already dog-eared. I’d tried memorising a few lines on the flight over, but I gave up. ‘Je suis ... un polic ... ier d'Australie’. No idea whether I’d pronounced it co
rrectly or not.

  He appeared back at the window. ‘Stop murdering my language. I ask again, what do you want?’

  Could’ve said he knew English.

  I glanced around. Several people walked past. ‘Not here. Can I come up?’

  The old guy huffed. ‘First door on the right.’ He moved away from the window, and the front door clicked open.

  I pushed it and walked through. What the ...? I waved a hand beneath my nose. The smell of fried fish, stale cigarettes, rotting wood, damp and who knew what else, all rushed at me at once. Didn’t they ever air these places out?

  The stairs creaked with each step. First door on the right, he’d said. Guess he meant the one with the five or six layers of peeling paint.

  I knocked.

  ‘It’s open.’

  The old guy sat at a small table, newspaper spread out before him, a cup of coffee in hand. It smelled good. I’d had breakfast on the plane, but the coffee wasn’t drinkable. Never was on airlines.

  ‘So what do you want, policeman-from-Australia?’ He looked up at me from the top rim of his glasses.

  I’d rehearsed what I was going say almost from the moment I’d left Sydney, yet here I was, and only one word sprang to mind. ‘Vampires.’

  Bloody jetlag must be draining my brain.

  He removed his glasses and checked me out through narrowed eyes. ‘You could have saved yourself a trip and just looked that up online.’ He jerked his head in the direction of his desktop computer. ‘Australian police have nothing better to do than chase myths?’ He barked out a laugh.

  I scrubbed both hands down my face. Why had I thought this would be easy? ‘Take a look at this.’ I pulled out my phone and showed him the photos I’d taken of the kids’ box and his name in the notebook. I pointed to it. ‘Your name and address are in here.’

  He grabbed the phone from my hand, his face paling as he scrolled through. ‘How did you get this?’

  ‘Recognise the box?’

  ‘Never seen it before. Your business here is finished. Get out.’ He practically flung the phone back at me. His hand shook as he brought the cup of coffee to his lips.

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘Show me your warrant. If you are here officially, there should be a gendarme with you.’ His gaze slid past me to the door. ‘But no, you are alone. This—’ his eyes narrowed, and he waved his hand at me ‘—has nothing to do with police business, does it?’

  I pulled the warrant from my coat pocket and dropped it on the table. The guy from Interpol who’d met me at the airport didn’t think it necessary to accompany me. ‘It’s only routine questioning,’ he’d said. ‘You don’t need me for that. Send me a report when it’s done.’

  Lazy bastard.

  So, yeah, I was on my own.

  The old guy hunched over that piece of paper like a crab guarding his meal, bony finger hovering over one line. His lips silently formed the word, “Dantonville.” Oh, yeah, he recognised it, all right. He swallowed, lips turned down as if he’d eaten something bad, and slid the warrant back across the table to me. ‘My name’s not on this warrant. You have no business being here.’

  I pointed to the same spot. ‘The woman, Laura Dantonville, is an Ingenii, recently come of age.’

  His eyes flared at my use of that word.

  ‘This man,’ I bit the words out, pointing to the other name on the warrant, ‘is the princeps, and I need to bring him in for questioning regarding a murder I’m investigating.’

  He gaped at me. ‘How do you know this? Who gave you this information? Tell me!’

  But before I could answer, he broke out into a fit of coughing.

  ‘Hey, you okay?’ I slapped him on the back as it looked like he was choking. ‘Can I get you some water?’

  He waved me off and pulled an inhaler from his pants pocket. A few puffs later, the coughing stopped.

  ‘Asthma?’

  ‘Emphy ... sema.’ He took a couple of deep breaths, his face registering relief. ‘Take my advice, and don’t smoke. Fucking things will kill you.’

  I pulled out the only other chair at the table and sat facing him. ‘Look, I came here hoping you’d help me out. So stop pretending you know nothing about The Brethren...’ There was a barely detectible flicker of one eye when I spat the word out. ‘...as they call themselves. I need a way to bring their leader in without actually killing him.’ Yet. That wouldn’t serve my purpose. ‘I want to expose them and let the law deal with them.’

  He ground out a few more gravelly laughs between puffs of the inhaler. ‘You’re crazy!’

  ‘Maybe, but if the world knows about them, we can get rid of them.’ That was the plan.

  The old guy shook his head, took a long deep breath and turned to stare out the window. ‘You still haven’t told me how you know all this.’

  I figured there’d be nothing to gain if I withheld that info from him. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours, as they say. It was my turn to scratch. ‘I was briefly engaged to her.’ I tapped the paper to Laura’s name on the warrant. ‘I met the ... family.’

  His gaze snapped to me, eyes bugging in his head, then they narrowed as he read through my words. ‘The female protected you.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Then you’re an even greater fool!’ He stood on shaky legs, and when I went to give him a hand, he slapped it away. ‘Why didn’t they erase your memory?’

  ‘You stopped playing games, then?’

  ‘Answer my question. And I’ll let you know.’

  Fair enough. I explained how Munro had wiped my mind. Lebrettan would’ve killed me, for sure. But it hadn’t stopped me investigating them. It was small satisfaction that I’d irritated Munro enough for him to restore my memory in return for my help in protecting Laura.

  What an upside-down shit situation. More proof, if I’d needed any, just how much his bloodsucking lot were out of control. Another nail in his coffin—funny joke, man!—as far as I saw it.

  ‘You want to get yourself killed? Go. Leave me out of it. I said as much in my letter to the fool from your country who wrote to me, asking me to join them.’ The old guy shuffled to the door, shoulders hunched, head down.

  Davis hadn’t mentioned that, the sneaky kid. ‘Your vampire hunting days may be over, old man, but mine are just beginning, and if you can’t help me, I’ll go elsewhere or do it on my own.’ And heaven help anyone who tries to stop me.

  He halted just short of the door, straightened his back and turned to face me, his mouth pulled back in a sneer. ‘And you know so much about killing fangheads. The great expert from reading one old book. Ha! You know nothing. Nothing! I was never a vampire hunter. The name in that notebook is my great-grandfather’s, and after his deal with Lord Lucien, the fraternity disbanded. My father swore to have nothing to do with it, and neither will I. Be smart and do the same. Leave it alone. Go home and forget about it.’

  Anger burned up in my veins. He may as well have told me to quit my job and join the circus! Not. Going. To. Happen. I stood and pocketed my phone while planning my next step. ‘Don’t you care about human lives?’

  ‘There haven’t been any vampire killings in this country for centuries. And I want to keep it that way.’ His eyes darted sharply to the side. He pulled out a walking stick from the umbrella stand near the door, raised it and brought it crashing down on the floor. ‘You go after them, and they will swat you like I just did that cockroach.’

  He doubled over in another coughing fit, the walking stick clanging onto the tiled floor to join the cockroach remains.

  Oh hell! In spite of his protests, I half-dragged the old guy—coughing and spluttering—back to his chair at the table where he’d left his puffer and put it into his hand. Spots of blood dotted his lips and the front of his sweater—and my wrist and my leather watchband. ‘You should be in hospital. I’ll ring the ambulance. What’s the emergency number here?’ I dug the phone from my pocket. I’d managed to get an EU SIM card at the a
irport.

  Puffer at his lips, all he did was shake his head and dismissively wave his hand at me again. ‘No ... hospital. I’m dying ... anyway. They ... can do ... nothing, except give me another of those ... oxygen bottles.’ He pointed to a metal cylinder and breathing mask near the sofa.

  ‘Why aren’t you using it, instead of the puffer? It’s more effective.’

  ‘I’m managing.’

  Stubborn old coot. I waited until he sat back and wiped his mouth, breath wheezing in and out of him, eyes streaming from the effort. After a few moments, his breathing evened again. Reluctant to say anything in case the old guy went into another coughing spasm from which he mightn’t recover, I removed my coat, went over to the sink to wash the blood from my wrist and watchband. Some had even splashed on my bracelet. Like the watch, it had been a gift from my grandmother on my graduation from the Police Academy. She’d had my name, date of graduation and shield engraved on the silver plate and framed it with a black leather band. I’d promised her I’d never take it off.

  ‘While you’re there, can you get me some water?’

  I looked over my shoulder. ‘Feeling better?’

  He nodded and took a couple of deep breaths. ‘For now.’

  Sorry, Grandma. I left my watch and bracelet on the sink to dry, filled a clean glass I found sitting on the dish rack and handed it to him. He gulped it down but grabbed my wrist with his other hand and turned it upwards. He pushed his glasses further up his nose, leant forward to take a long, hard look. ‘Not possible,’ he muttered. ‘You’re alive?’ Mouth open, eyes wide behind his spectacles, he gaped at me as if I’d just sprouted horns.

  ‘Of course, I’m bloody alive—’

  ‘No, no, stupid man! Your family. Your family is alive and well? And the other one too? Why didn’t you let us know? We all thought you’d been killed after your clan had left.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about.’

  His frown deepened. ‘This!’ He shook my wrist. ‘This mark.’

  ‘What? It’s just a birthmark. Nothing more.’ I snatched my wrist back. My father had the same small squiggle-and-hook mark on his wrist. It was a harmless genetic thing.